BHBalanced Hackmons

Go to page

Go to page

Go to page

It at least hits them (which Poison Fang cannot), and setup Kartana and NDM can't touch Slowbro-Mega in the meantime. Poisoning can be outhealed, but takes less time to force heals (draining PP) than bad poisoning if the opponent is mainly switching.

went from brawl to melee, still mediocre

twineedle is mainly for setup kart/dusk mane which slowbro can handle, especially if it has sap to protect against power whip, but fails to actually damage with a poison move. this can be risky because it means you have to go for pp stall, potentially letting threatening guys in for free. twineedle helps you not be passive vs these guys and makes it harder for the opponent to stall out hail. scald is bad because then you're walled by pdon which is bad news.

besides that though, you definitely don't have to run twineedle if you think another move would be better. this is almost definitely not the optimal hail team, just something constructed from my current view of the meta, and more experimentation is also nice.

the more offensive direction you proposed is kinda cool actually, i can see how fakespeed mons would be a ton more threatening with hail/status chip working alongside them. other options i considered were offensive magic guard users like mmy, mmx, and diancie, and even stupid stuff like ph mamo. hail balance might be the strat here.

Illusion is the signature ability of Zoroark, it lets you assume the aspect of the last pokemon (not fainted) of your team until you are hit, except for the hp percentage (and status), which is not disguised. The ability resets on switchout. It prevents imposter/transform from activating and in bh it caused some problems because everything could run it. Imagine that the opponent sends in Rayquaza against your Giratina. Rayquaza which is usually walled by Flash Fire Registeel and can hit supereffectively Giratina; it would be wise to switchout to Registeel. Except that Rayquaza is actually choice band illusion MMX and it just close combated your registeel to 0hp. That's not really fun, because now Rayquaza can sweep. There was counterplay to this; an example is fakeout, that breaks illusion, deals some damage to remember you which pokemon you are actually facing and makes them flinch, making them lose the turn. Because reasons illusion is banned, and there is little reason to run fake out, except on fakespeed sets. Chansey's pathetic fake out had reason to be run because of illusion, but without it is just dumb. I didn't help that it is scarf imposter; they would be forced to switchout afterwords anyway

Toxic is a bad idea because it gets bounced, and can miss (poison fang may not poison, but at least it does a little damage). Also, because megabro is running prankster, toxic wouldn't hit dark types and dazzling.
.

Twineedle hits Steel types like Kartana and NDM so it’s not dead weight against them. Additionally, poison is useful for an opposing team that switches frequently, for it damages for more on the first turn, enough to outdamage Leftovers.

I guess you have a point with Poison on the first turn, but I feel like a frequently switching team is a bit situational. I may be wrong, I just got into the metagame, but still. I feel like badly poisoning is much more useful in the long run.

"Hmmm, 20% each hit? Might be handy if you just need any poison status for a Merciless sweeper or something...."

*Calculates the total odds of occuring*

"32%? That barely beats out Poison Fang, right? Neat, that does give it some niche justification over Poison Fang!"

*Double checks Poison Fang*

"...oh, it's 50% now. Well, never mind."

I tried to find it a niche but... it really doesn't do anything stand out. I think double-digit-KOing is way too situational, especially when the targets in question are immune to the status you brought the move to inflict. I mean, not to be a smart ass or anything, but look...

twineedle is mainly for setup kart/dusk mane which slowbro can handle, especially if it has sap to protect against power whip, but fails to actually damage with a poison move. this can be risky because it means you have to go for pp stall, potentially letting threatening guys in for free. twineedle helps you not be passive vs these guys and makes it harder for the opponent to stall out hail. scald is bad because then you're walled by pdon which is bad news.

besides that though, you definitely don't have to run twineedle if you think another move would be better. this is almost definitely not the optimal hail team, just something constructed from my current view of the meta, and more experimentation is also nice.

the more offensive direction you proposed is kinda cool actually, i can see how fakespeed mons would be a ton more threatening with hail/status chip working alongside them. other options i considered were offensive magic guard users like mmy, mmx, and diancie, and even stupid stuff like ph mamo. hail balance might be the strat here.

I know it's Hail Stall, but cant you have at least one Offensive Pokemon?
The great thing about Hail is your opponent cannot take advantage of the same abilities as you, besides Imposter, so why not consider Slush Rush?

Not that it must be an Ice type, but if Kyurem-White ran Choice Specs STAB Blizzard, Clanging Scales / Draco Meteor, Eruption, and Earth Power, I could see it dealing good damage, and carving out a niche. This is not a great Pokemon, but if given the right support, perhaps it could serve some value?

(Eruption is similar to Water Spout Scarf Kyogre-Primal; Specs matches a STAB boost, so Kyurem-White is much faster and has the same base power).

Draco Meteor means even if the Hail runs out, not even Zygarde-Complete can survive:

Remember, this is without Adaptability, and without a Z-item. Kyurem-White means business!

Also, what's a Hail Stall team without Aurora Veil?
Throw Aurora Veil on Lapras, this way it can actually survive and take hits in BH's heavily offensive metagame. Lapras isn't a paper thin Pokemon, but its no Zygarde-Complete either, plus it helps the whole team.

bounce ogre is a really solid glue mon that i've found myself slapping onto a lot of teams lately. it's a very solid counter to ph xern/ogre and normgar, and it can solidly check a ton of mons like pixilate diancie and triage ray just by virtue of its typing/bulk. scald + entrainment is difficult for a lot of teams to switch into, and so ogre is pretty good at chipping down teams over a long game with burns. ice beam lets ogre pressure tina and zyg and more effectively check ray. spectral can be used > entrain to better check gar and contra m2y and other miscellaneous nonsense. spectral still beats xern but im not sure if it beats ph ogre and it leaves you walled by stuff like ph tina/aud. this set always feels good against fat balance teams and its very rarely deadweight, just a really solid mon overall. i dont like u-turn much on this set bc it makes it really obnoxious to improof and you let imposter get a lot of momentum against you.

sf ogre is way better than it looks at first glance. steam eruption 2hkos basically anything that doesn't resist it, and ice beam/bolt strike take out anything that does. i like this a lot as a shell smasher bc it beats a lot of common prankster/unaware mons by just being strong enough to 2hko them unboosted. why use sf ogre > sf mmy? there's a few reasons. ogre's better bulk and defensive typing allow it to stick around a lot longer, and in particular it doesn't get worn down so quickly by miscellaneous spectrals/uturns. kyogre has a much more powerful stab, which gives it a lot more initial power and means it relies far less on coverage to break stuff, which allows it to more effectively run stuff like shell smash. the surprise factor is pretty significant too; often people will go into something like tina or vest ogre to scout and just get bopped.

this set can be difficult to imposter-proof. shedinja works, but it's really the only decent option unless you want to go really deep and run something like unaware ferro or volt absorb ogre. its important to note that bolt strike does like 45-55 to imposter, meaning that imposter can't really safely switch in if you predict it, and if you smash on the switch to imposter you can just kill it with a decent roll or even just a little bit of prior damage.

this obviously lacks the raw power of other offensive ogre sets like specs primsea/tinted, but gains the advantage of being able to switch moves, being less telegraphed than primsea, being better at running shell smash, and not losing to other pogres.

haven't really tested this set enough to come to a verdict on it, heaps of teams can't really deal with it defensively and it has bulk + shore up so it can stick around but it can't really beat giratina or other ogres besides freezing them. it is a very fun imposter lure tho

pex is a weird mon, but i like it very much. its unique set of resists and good bulk allows it to role compress in a pretty unique way. pex beats mdiancie/xern without ground coverage, many variants of ogre, psychic-less mmx (ph, -ate, some tough claws sets, some contra sets sometimes), pheromosa and the bee, many kart sets, and some other miscellaneous dudes. it has an extremely slow u-turn, it's really hard for fat teams to wear down bc it can't be poisoned, resists uturn and anchor and isnt weak to core/spectral. pex's main niche is that it resists fairy+fire without needing an ability, making it a really efficient improof to v-create+hazards diancie. i've only really run pex on teams where i needed it to improof something specific, like in this ompl game where it was improofing a couple of weird mmx sets. pex walled basically willdbeast's whole team here, but i played it kinda poorly unfortunately. i'm not sure if pex is worth running without magic bounce — i've considered running levitate but i don't think that's very good

sf mmy makes for a good hazard setter bc it forces so many switches and beats most of the common defoggers/bouncers. sf mmy often runs a kinda situational move like psychic or sludge in the last slot, so you aren't sacrificing a huge amount running hazards on it. improof with some magic bounce fat dude, depending on coverage

i talked about this one on the discord yesterday and people seemed skeptical, so i figured it'd be good to explain why i think this set is worth using. defensively, this set is a solid counter to pretty much every ph gigas/mmx and it does a nice job at checking a variety of ray sets. it also gets a ton of momentum on a variety of fat mons, similar to ph xern. this set is good against the same types of teams that ph xern is good against, but it has a bit more initial speed and power. coil boosting the accuracy of kiss is really sweet and makes the set a lot more consistent. the 4x steel weakness is really annoying, as is the weaknesses to thousand waves and ogre's revdance. i brought this one against quantum tesseract in world cup: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-837247289. it would have been able to do well in this game if i hadn't assumed the zygarde was soundproof

taunt+nuzzle xern crushes a lot of fat teams. taunt shuts down entrainment/recovery and stops other fat ph mons from setting up on you. nuzzle does a few things: it makes the set more potent against offense, it's really good against imposter, and it lets you beat stuff like magic bounce audino that would beat you otherwise. you just paralyse them, then get them with magma and spam moonblast, it usually only takes one full para to take them out. this set goes really well with spikes. you do lose a lot against more offensive teams by dropping quiver + kiss, but this set is basically free wins vs a lot of common bulky builds, very fun stuff.

bounce ogre is a really solid glue mon that i've found myself slapping onto a lot of teams lately. it's a very solid counter to ph xern/ogre and normgar, and it can solidly check a ton of mons like pixilate diancie and triage ray just by virtue of its typing/bulk. scald + entrainment is difficult for a lot of teams to switch into, and so ogre is pretty good at chipping down teams over a long game with burns. ice beam lets ogre pressure tina and zyg and more effectively check ray. spectral can be used > entrain to better check gar and contra m2y and other miscellaneous nonsense. spectral still beats xern but im not sure if it beats ph ogre and it leaves you walled by stuff like ph tina/aud. this set always feels good against fat balance teams and its very rarely deadweight, just a really solid mon overall. i dont like u-turn much on this set bc it makes it really obnoxious to improof and you let imposter get a lot of momentum against you.

sf ogre is way better than it looks at first glance. steam eruption 2hkos basically anything that doesn't resist it, and ice beam/bolt strike take out anything that does. i like this a lot as a shell smasher bc it beats a lot of common prankster/unaware mons by just being strong enough to 2hko them unboosted. why use sf ogre > sf mmy? there's a few reasons. ogre's better bulk and defensive typing allow it to stick around a lot longer, and in particular it doesn't get worn down so quickly by miscellaneous spectrals/uturns. kyogre has a much more powerful stab, which gives it a lot more initial power and means it relies far less on coverage to break stuff, which allows it to more effectively run stuff like shell smash. the surprise factor is pretty significant too; often people will go into something like tina or vest ogre to scout and just get bopped.

this set can be difficult to imposter-proof. shedinja works, but it's really the only decent option unless you want to go really deep and run something like unaware ferro or volt absorb ogre. its important to note that bolt strike does like 45-55 to imposter, meaning that imposter can't really safely switch in if you predict it, and if you smash on the switch to imposter you can just kill it with a decent roll or even just a little bit of prior damage.

this obviously lacks the raw power of other offensive ogre sets like specs primsea/tinted, but gains the advantage of being able to switch moves, being less telegraphed than primsea, being better at running shell smash, and not losing to other pogres.

haven't really tested this set enough to come to a verdict on it, heaps of teams can't really deal with it defensively and it has bulk + shore up so it can stick around but it can't really beat giratina or other ogres besides freezing them. it is a very fun imposter lure tho

pex is a weird mon, but i like it very much. its unique set of resists and good bulk allows it to role compress in a pretty unique way. pex beats mdiancie/xern without ground coverage, many variants of ogre, psychic-less mmx (ph, -ate, some tough claws sets, some contra sets sometimes), pheromosa and the bee, many kart sets, and some other miscellaneous dudes. it has an extremely slow u-turn, it's really hard for fat teams to wear down bc it can't be poisoned, resists uturn and anchor and isnt weak to core/spectral. pex's main niche is that it resists fairy+fire without needing an ability, making it a really efficient improof to v-create+hazards diancie. i've only really run pex on teams where i needed it to improof something specific, like in this ompl game where it was improofing a couple of weird mmx sets. pex walled basically willdbeast's whole team here, but i played it kinda poorly unfortunately. i'm not sure if pex is worth running without magic bounce — i've considered running levitate but i don't think that's very good

sf mmy makes for a good hazard setter bc it forces so many switches and beats most of the common defoggers/bouncers. sf mmy often runs a kinda situational move like psychic or sludge in the last slot, so you aren't sacrificing a huge amount running hazards on it. improof with some magic bounce fat dude, depending on coverage

i talked about this one on the discord yesterday and people seemed skeptical, so i figured it'd be good to explain why i think this set is worth using. defensively, this set is a solid counter to pretty much every ph gigas/mmx and it does a nice job at checking a variety of ray sets. it also gets a ton of momentum on a variety of fat mons, similar to ph xern. this set is good against the same types of teams that ph xern is good against, but it has a bit more initial speed and power. coil boosting the accuracy of kiss is really sweet and makes the set a lot more consistent. the 4x steel weakness is really annoying, as is the weaknesses to thousand waves and ogre's revdance. i brought this one against quantum tesseract in world cup: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-837247289. it would have been able to do well in this game if i hadn't assumed the zygarde was soundproof

taunt+nuzzle xern crushes a lot of fat teams. taunt shuts down entrainment/recovery and stops other fat ph mons from setting up on you. nuzzle does a few things: it makes the set more potent against offense, it's really good against imposter, and it lets you beat stuff like magic bounce audino that would beat you otherwise. you just paralyse them, then get them with magma and spam moonblast, it usually only takes one full para to take them out. this set goes really well with spikes. you do lose a lot against more offensive teams by dropping quiver + kiss, but this set is basically free wins vs a lot of common bulky builds, very fun stuff.

Would Extreme Speed be better on Aerodactyl? Just for countering -ate Rayquaza for the priority win (plus if you switch into Nuzzle, etc.)
I like Kyogre especially because the initially slower speed diminishes the likelihood of Spectral Thief working after the boost, and lowering the likelihood of Core Enforcer activating (on the Sheer Force set).

My suggestion to everything that runs Ice Beam without Sheer Force, is use Frost Breathe! It bypasses Quiver Dance, etc. boosts, and deals slightly more damage on average (even though they have the same base power). This makes a huge difference when facing things like PH Xerneas with Quiver Dance, Contrarians with V-Create, or if your team has been Spectral Thiefed of your +SpD boosts. It also helps if your SpA is lowered (Topsy Turvey, Parting Shot, etc.)

I am going to give another day for the BH Secret Santa registrations and core submissions since I have to wait for user to submit his/her core. Deadline for signups is today 11:59 PST (or whatever time I come on tomorrow).

Double post but whatever.
All the cores have been sent out for the Balanced Hackmons Secret Santa Project.
Please finish the team ASAP and PM me in the same conversation that we have been communicating in.
Try to finish the team before December 24th, 21:00, PST, so I can send it out before the 25th.
Please make the team as viable as possible, if possible include replays of the team in action (whether its on ladder or with a friend) that are against competent opponents. Please also include a description of the team.
Please don't test teams with other people that are participating in this secret santa project. This includes

I totally appreciate you taking inspiration from my Slaking set, I think it’s great to surprise many people thinking it’s PHeal, and boom just when they switch to a Safety Goggles Pokemon you Belly Drum and proceed to 1HKO their team.

I would replace Specs on Rayquaza with Life Orb, and replace Draining Kiss with Tail Glow. After STAB, neutral Oblivion Wing outdamages a Super Effective Draining Kiss and you can heal off the Life Orb Damage anyways.

A lot of people don’t realize this, but Slaking is a perfect counter to Triage Rayquaza, being completely immune to all of its attacks, which makes it a perfect Imposterproof for both itself and Rayquaza! :)

One thing I would suggest to you is to replace Beedrill with Arceus and use Tail Glow, Boomburst, Moongeist Beam, and Recover to stop Sound moves.

Otherwise, Pheromosa has STAB on Close Combat and higher Speed, so it can do the same moveset Beedrill has with a few advantages.

For Gyarados, I think Unaware sets should be defensive, using Shell Smash will still lower your Defense and Special Defense, so an Imposter with Close Combat will still hurt it. How about Shore Up, Knock Off, Dragon Tail, and Shift Gear? You boost your Attack and Speed, while removing an Imposter’s Eviolite or Scarf. Dragon Tail can be used to pHaze a Pokémon like Regigigas or Slaking that are not affected by Spectral Thief. This can also counter your Slaking if Impostered (say your Slaking gets Poisoned by Toxic Spikes and the their Imposter outlives it). It’s item is Safety Goggles, although Darkinium-Z could be used for NormGar and hitting Giratina hard on a switch.

Overall, I think you did a great job!
The only thing left is to ensure Aegislash can survive more hits so that Shedinja isn’t able to threaten your team as easily. Let’s give it Stealth Rocks, Defog, Spectral Thief, and Shore Up (if your foe Imposters it, Arceus and Slaking are not threatened by it). It’s item is Leftovers, and it’s Ability is Flash Fire.

For Gyarados, I think Unaware sets should be defensive, using Shell Smash will still lower your Defense and Special Defense, so an Imposter with Close Combat will still hurt it. How about Shore Up, Knock Off, Dragon Tail, and Shift Gear? You boost your Attack and Speed, while removing an Imposter’s Eviolite or Scarf. Dragon Tail can be used to pHaze a Pokémon like Regigigas or Slaking that are not affected by Spectral Thief. This can also counter your Slaking if Impostered (say your Slaking gets Poisoned by Toxic Spikes and the their Imposter outlives it). It’s item is Safety Goggles, although Darkinium-Z could be used for NormGar and hitting Giratina hard on a switch.

The only thing left is to ensure Aegislash can survive more hits so that Shedinja isn’t able to threaten your team as easily. Let’s give it Stealth Rocks, Defog, Spectral Thief, and Shore Up (if your foe Imposters it, Arceus and Slaking are not threatened by it). It’s item is Leftovers, and it’s Ability is Flash Fire.

Yeah this was the idea. I wanted to get an offensive check to normgar while still having the respect to hurt other moms after set up. I really really hate shed, so Mold breaker pursuit on aegislash sounds great.

I just thought I'd post a (kinda bad) team I've been using a bit lately featuring magic bounce Ho-oh. sl42 said something in a vr post or somewhere about how non magic guard ho-oh isn't too bad and I thought Ho-oh is super neat bc it resists a lot of the stuff common offensive setters run: fairy + fire/ground from diancie, fighting + dark/bug/ice (not actually a resist, sue me) from PH mmx, fire + ground (+ steel?) from defensive pdon, although v-create does a million anyway. And it still does ho-ohy things with bounce

This is probably nowhere near to optimal and it has some serious flaws (no gigas switchin, very triage ray weak) but it's a nice example of what bounce Ho-oh can do, here specifically it prevents imposters from setting up spikes as well as checking normgar, most diancie, xern, some mmx and a range of other special attackers while providing support with bounce. Any quick fixes would be appreciated but I'm not particularly concerned with the team itself or even the particular Ho-oh set, but just some different abilities it can viably run.
Also I gotta say Beak Blast has been really good on PH yveltal, it's a shame there's no users in this community who vocally advocate its use...

Yeah this was the idea. I wanted to get an offensive check to normgar while still having the respect to hurt other moms after set up. I really really hate shed, so Mold breaker pursuit on aegislash sounds great.

Slaking Ftw!
I am not sure if Aegislash can Improof Gyarados without Safety Goggles unless you Stall it to switch. It can still stay in and use Struggle unless you U-Turn it after it used Shell Smash over and over.

I agree with Gyarados but Imposter Gyrados can use Spore and stop your own Gyarados, and proceed to set up or use Close Combat, which could be an issue if Aegislash has fainted. MMX is immune to Spore but if you cannot send it in, then Imposter can pose a threat if it wins Spore Speed tie.

Unaware only ignores the opponents stat changes, so if they have something with Priority, such as -ate, they can hit Gyarados off of its lowered defenses. Shift Gear can be useful for setting up in the long term, especially since Gyarados doesn’t have a healing move and you may need to send it in multiple times.

I agree that Aegislash with Mold Breaker stops Shedinja, but what do you do if Aegislash is KOed? I suggest Stealth Rocks on your team. Maybe over King’s Shield on MMX?

I have seen PH MMX with Spikes or Stealth Rocks, and it would be a nice surprise on something that forces switches anyways.

Slaking Ftw!
I am not sure if Aegislash can Improof Gyarados without Safety Goggles unless you Stall it to switch. It can still stay in and use Struggle unless you U-Turn it after it used Shell Smash over and over.

I agree with Gyarados but Imposter Gyrados can use Spore and stop your own Gyarados, and proceed to set up or use Close Combat, which could be an issue if Aegislash has fainted. MMX is immune to Spore but if you cannot send it in, then Imposter can pose a threat if it wins Spore Speed tie.

Unaware only ignores the opponents stat changes, so if they have something with Priority, such as -ate, they can hit Gyarados off of its lowered defenses. Shift Gear can be useful for setting up in the long term, especially since Gyarados doesn’t have a healing move and you may need to send it in multiple times.

I agree that Aegislash with Mold Breaker stops Shedinja, but what do you do if Aegislash is KOed? I suggest Stealth Rocks on your team. Maybe over King’s Shield on MMX?

I have seen PH MMX with Spikes or Stealth Rocks, and it would be a nice surprise on something that forces switches anyways.

Hey everyone!
So the BHSS deadline has been reached and everyone (bar one naughty person) submitted the teams!
So you can post the team you got here and try to find out who sent you it (unless you already found out on discord) or discuss (basically do whatever with them).
Merry Christmas everyone and have a great holiday!

Hey everyone!
So the BHSS deadline has been reached and everyone (bar one naughty person) submitted the teams!
So you can post the team you got here and try to find out who sent you it (unless you already found out on discord) or discuss (basically do whatever with them).
Merry Christmas everyone and have a great holiday!

You will have those 2 weeks to build a team for each core/set and ladder with it on an alt.

The alt needs to include a certain "String of words" that will be posted with the core.

Near the end of the 2 weeks you can post your team along with proof of your laddering results.

Replays are optional but good for supplementing, but only post replays against viable teams.

DO post a description of your team, you can keep it brief, but at least mention what the role of each mon is, what is their improof, why they are there, etc.

I (along with maybe some other people), will determine the winner of each biweekly challenge.

Have Fun!

No one here... yet

Week 1: Choice Specs Tinted Lens MMY and Technician MMX

Your alts should include tlmmy and techmmx, not separated apart from spaces, respectively. It can be capitalized if you want.
Specs Tinted Lens MMY is a fearsome breaker that capitalizes on its usual switch-in such as steels (bar Solgaleo and NDM).
Technician MMX is another strong breaker that can break through common switch-ins such as Prankster Giratina.
You have until January 11th to finish, good luck!

went from brawl to melee, still mediocre

i'm back with another post. so if you guys have ever seen me ladder, you know i can get tilted pretty easily, and even without tilt i tend to dismiss a lot of games as "bad". in this post, i'll explain why i think like this and what i've learned, and how one gimmicky team fits into the tale.

on fun in bh:

for a while i thought that such a high percentage of games being "bad" was because of some kind of issue in the metagame, or even the nature of bh itself being problematic with it not supporting "good" high-level play somehow. but now, i have a better answer.

today, i realized that what set my teams apart from those of others. in bh, there's a kind of spectrum which all teams fall somewhere on, in which one side (hyper offense) focuses on checking threats, while the other (stall) focuses more on countering them. my teams, outside of my gimmicky attempts at offense builds, almost always tend to fall very far to the right, which is why i tend to use more gimmicky mons a lot of the time: more mainstream options, like registeel, tend to make poor choices as perfect counters to threats, so instead i use stuff like nihilego as my mray switchin.

and this is where the "bad" games come in. with a playstyle built around countering everything, you typically get two types of games very often: games where they have something you're not prepared for that has a big advantage, and games where you have the counters to everything so you just end up crushing their team. now, i'd definitely call both of these game types "bad". i don't get anything out of losing to some dumb ladder set, and i don't get anything out of walling out some poor 1500s dude until my breaker gets enough opportunities to come in.

my hyper offense teams can still produce lots of bad games, despite their "checking" philosophy, and i'm still working out why that is. but there is one team i have that's almost always a blast to use, no matter whether or not i win:

disclaimer: i'm not trying to say that this team is good, or "innovative", or anything like that. this is not some new tournament tech. this is band sand.

so anyway, how does band sand, of all things, prevent these bad games from happening? i think there's a couple reasons behind it:

first of all, band sand takes away safe options by nature. yeah, in some games, you can get caught in a slow uturn vortex, where you're forced to go to a certain mon constantly in order to not get blown back by some breaker, but in general the mon you have out can do some serious damage to the opposing mon if it chooses to. the team also has strong wallbreaking options, like chomp and regi + pursuit support, so there aren't really safe counters. but in return, band sand has almost no safe options as well. literally the only form of recovery on the team is steelix's regenerator, and unless you go with relatively weak uturns your options are usually going to be punishable to some extent.

additionally, the thing about band sand is that it doesn't outright lose to very much on matchup. its breaking core can wear down most defensive cores if you play appropriately, and its abundance of priority, as well as sand rush lunala as speed control, can take on most sweepers. these benefits do, of course, come at the cost of always being locked into a move, and because of this there really isn't that much that band sand outright beats either. this removes most of the "matchup" issue that makes me mad a lot, and a lot of the games end up super close.

having a team that can lose to all but the scrubbiest of low ladder teams doesn't sound like a good formula for success, and yeah, i lost a bunch of elo while using band sand. it's not consistent in the slightest. but i did get some absolutely awesome games that rewarded skill:

so where do we go from here? my current approach of countering threats instead of checking them is definitely restrictive, even if it has brought me some success in tournaments. giving the other end of the spectrum a better chance will be a lot more helpful in the future.

this was more of a self introspective than a metagame post, so i'm sorry if you didn't get much out of it, but if nothing else maybe you can make use of band sand if youre not finding the meta fun either rn. thanks for reading.

One thing I would do, is replace Nature’s Madness with Reversal. Since you are guaranteed to survive a really strong move, Reversal could provide decent damage against Dark and Steel types at 1 HP. Destiny Bond could also work. :)

While not required, I think Taunt might be a better option than Fake-Out just because it can prevent more tactics an opponent uses.

Quite frankly, Deoxys-Speed is a pretty poor mon in the metagame. Especially if it is a suicide lead without Mold Breaker, as you are just asking for Magic Bounce to come in, since your Psycho boost does like no damage. I really don't understand the point of Magic guard when you are leading with it so it won't switch in to hazards and the only mon this helps against is Sand Stream TTar which isn't that common anyway.

Even if you want to use a suicide lead Mega Gengar is usually better, as it can provide offensive presence, as well as bluffing to be the more common offensive setup Mold Breaker set.

One thing I would do, is replace Nature’s Madness with Reversal. Since you are guaranteed to survive a really strong move, Reversal could provide decent damage against Dark and Steel types at 1 HP. Destiny Bond could also work. :)

While not required, I think Taunt might be a better option than Fake-Out just because it can prevent more tactics an opponent uses.

Deo-S has 95 base attack so it is not going to be doing much even with 200 BP reversal, if you want something gimmicky like that running Counter/Mirror Coat would be better. On this particular set Spectral Thief might even be a option if he didn't mention that this is a lead.

IMO, Deo-S works best in the current meta as fast check to fast opponents rather than a lead. Something you bring in constantly to harass quick opponents without needing to rely on Prankster and then bail when the opponent brings in their check. Or you can give it Prankster to check opposing Prankster. It's pretty niche though since it's pretty frail, gets hurt by speed control, and Shell Smash is rather popular, so you gotta work a bit to fit it on a team.

Psycho Boost was only in case the opponent had taunt since they could have gotten a free setup from making me switch. Nature's Madness was a move just so I could get an easy 50% off their health. Fake out was so they couldn't set up, and stealth rock to check focus sash. I didn't notice lots of these things as I was making the set, so thanks for the feedback. I'll try to make a much better set.